The wondrous story of the Black Knight
by Lila75
Summary: The Black Knight makes a short but classic appeacance in the musical Spamalot and of course in the film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." I was wondering what could have happened to him after he was left behind pinned to that tree - this is the result.
1. Chapter 1

_*This story has been inspired by the brilliant cast of the Monty Python musical Spamalot in Cologne – a special thanks to Serkan Kaya, who is an inspiration in whatever role he is playing*_

**The wondrous story of the Black Knight, and what happened to him after he was left behind pinned to a tree by a sword with no arms or legs in a dark and very expensive forest by Arthur, King of the Britons**

The Black Knight was big, and he was brave, and not afraid of anything. However, these qualities were of little use to him in his current situation. He had been stuck to a tree in this dark forest for what seemed like an eternity. No amount of wriggling, swearing and shouting had done anything to alleviate the situation. He was freezing cold, he was covered in goosebumps all over, even on his missing arms and legs, or so it felt. The darkness was so deep that he could not even see as far as the next tree.

And then there was this rustling, and something that sounded like footsteps, that seemed to get closer and closer.

"Who is there?" he exclaimed.

Somehow his voice didn't sound like he wanted it to, this was not the voice of a big strong scary knight, but of a scared little mouse. Not one to be beaten, he tried again.

"Who is there?" That was better – a deep, authoritative voice, the voice of a mighty knight, feared by all. He'd spread terror in these lands for years and years, since he'd arrived from a far-off country in the East. And why should the lack of arms and legs or being stuck to a tree make any difference to that? He could still spread terror, oh yes he could! Even if it was just by the sound of his voice.

The rustling stopped, and the woods were silent once more. Too silent...

He tried to make out any sound at all, but didn't manage. Tired out by the effort, his mind drifted back to that buffoon who called himself king of the Britons. Fancy that, sneakily cutting off his arms and legs and then wandering off pretending he'd won the fight... Thinking about this made him feel all hot under the collar again, and since he couldn't do much else he reverted to shouting.

"ANYBODY OUT HERE?"

At that moment, the moon appeared from behind the clouds and bathed the forest in a silvery glow. For a moment, the Black Knight was blinded by the sudden brightness and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, he found himself face to face with a stunningly beautiful creature. She had wavy blonde hair, and huge green eyes, and, as he noted with pleasure as his eyes went further down, was nicely padded in all the right places as well. She had seaweed wrapped around her head as well as her body, but he didn't mind – in fact, the colour of the seaweed enhanced the piercing green of her eyes perfectly.

She looked at him curiously and gave him a little smile, which in turn gave him a funny feeling inside his chest that was quite unfamiliar to him. He was a big brave Black Knight, but somehow, the not so big, not so brave but fairer knights who excelled at smooth talk had always fared better with the maidens. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out but a little squeaky sound. He quickly shut his mouth again, pretending that he hadn't really wanted to say anything in the first place.

She came closer to him, so close that he could take in her peculiar scent of water and seaweed.

"Oh dear, a knight without arms and legs... whatever happened to you?"

He tried and made himself look taller, a difficult undertaking without arms and legs and pinned to a tree, but being a brave knight, he had to try anyway.

"I lost them in a fight with a cowardly Englishman... he was afraid of me so he fight me to the end, but just pinned me to this tree and walked off... have you ever heard of such impudence?"

The girl shook her head and made a disapproving sound.

Encouraged by her sympathy, the Black Knight asked "Who are you then...er, fair maiden?"

She smiled at him sweetly. "I'm a Laker Girl. I live in the lake and I serve the Lady of the Lake, only I've had enough of being a servant. I decided to go off and see the world."

She paused and studied him thoroughly from top to midriff.

"You know, I think I can give you your arms and legs back..."

The Black Knight, feeling strangely unsettled by the inquisitive gaze of those green eyes, opened his mouth to ask how, when suddenly speech was made impossible as the beautiful maiden had started to kiss him! He was quite overwhelmed by the sweetness of this feeling. Soon, however, the sweetness was ousted by something else. A tingling, tickling feeling in his non-existent arms and legs that was getting stronger and stronger... Could it possibly be that he was getting his arms and legs back? His world began to loose focus, and he gave way to all the strange sensations washing over him and closed his eyes.

Finally the maiden withdrew from the kiss. The black knight opened his eyes as if awakening from a dream and looked at the girl, who, in turn, was looking at him in a slightly confused way.

"Oops..." she said.

Oops? Why oops? He wriggled a bit and looked down on himself – instead of the nothing there had been before, or the two strong legs he would have hoped for, there was an enormous fish tail, moist and glinting in the moonlight in all the colours of the rainbow. His eyes moved to where his arms should be – instead nothing, or two strong knight's arms there were pathetic little fins, fluttering in the light breeze like laundry on a clothesline.

A red hot fury took hold of him and he let out a mighty scream of frustration.

"What have you done, you wretched water flea – I'm a big brave knight, not a fish!"

Her big green eyes turned even bigger and wider, and her mouth quivered. Then she stepped quickly forward, pulled off his knight's helmet and smacked him with a surprising force for someone of her minuscule height. Without any further comment, she put his helmet back on again and stomped off.

The smack had not hurt our big fearless knight, but it had done a good job at cooling him down.

"Hey. Hey!! What are you doing? Where are you going? You can't just leave me here like that. Hey!! Come back. COME BACK!!"

The maiden took no notice, and walked off into the darkness of the forest, and the Black Knight was once again left on his own to contemplate his fate, still stuck to a tree, not limbless any more, but with a fish tail and fins.


	2. Chapter 2

The Black Knight was not happy. Not only did the fish tail look incredibly stupid poking out of his armour, it also felt increasingly dry and itchy. He tried again and again to wriggle himself free from the tree, but no such luck.

He was so wrapped up in his attempts that he didn't really pay attention to his surroundings, so he had quite a jolt when he looked over to the lake, and saw a girl with beautiful blonde hair bending over the water, flicking her hair, pouting suggestively and admiring her reflection. And it was an admirable reflection, the Black Knight found as far as he could judge from his position, the blonde hair enhanced the huge, brown eyes, the full lips were excessively kissable, and she was beautifully curvy too. Maybe her nose was a bit too big to be classed as beautiful in the classical sense, but overall, the Black Knight was quite taken. Only one thing didn't quite fit – instead of a beautiful dress, the lady was dressed like a knight with a coat of mail.

"Hey, Lady!" he shouted, ever the gentleman.

The Lady turned round with an outraged look on her face.

"It's Sir! SIR!! My name is Sir Galahad, I'm part of King Arthurs Round Table!!"

He flicked his hair back and scowled at the Black Knight.

"Well but you sure look like one from behind!" the Black Knight grumbled, disappointed and slightly embarrassed at this outcome.

"How dare you!" Sir Galahad shouted, with an impressively posh voice, frowning and pouting.

The Black Knight bit back another sarcastic remark and forced an apologetic smile on his face.

"I'm ever so sorry, my mistake. It's obvious that you are a fine, brave knight, and so handsome too. My eyes aren't what they used to be."

He saw that this idiot was a potential chance for him to break free from this tree. All he needed was a plan. Unfortunately thinking wasn't one of his strong points, but Sir Galahad gave him all the time he needed. Appeased by the remark, he continued where he had been so rudely interrupted, admiring his reflection.

"Hey, Sir Galahad!" he shouted eventually.

"What use is a knight to the great King Arthur without a sword?"

Sir Galahad tore himself away from his reflection, looking thoroughly bemused.

"Well I see you don't have a sword – don't you want one?"

Sir Galahad thought about it for a moment, and then nodded, slowly.

"Well I can offer you a sword ... it once belonged to the great King Arthur himself, wouldn't you like to own it yourself?"

Sir Galahad contemplated that a bit further, and his face slowly lit up. He had been peeved all the while to never have his own sword – what an opportunity!

"Well, if you want it, it's there for the taking – all you have to do is to pull it out of that tree, and it is yours!"

Without further hesitation, Sir Galahad pulled out the sword. The Black Knight fell to the ground with a loud metallic clonk. Sir Galahad completely ignored this, he didn't take his eyes off his sword for a second. He struck a pose with the sword, admiring the effect reflected in the pond. Finally, he galloped away, sword stretched out in front of him.

Now the Black Knight was freed from the sword due to his cunning idea, which he was very proud of. However, his situation hadn't really improved a lot. In fact, lying face down in the mud couldn't be counted as an improvement to being stuck on a tree – not when you had useless fins and a fishtail instead of arms and legs and couldn't just get up and go away.

For a while, he tried to flick himself round or get up, but the effort exhausted him, and he dozed off.

He was woken up not long after by some music in the distance, lovely, rhythmical and tuneful. He had always had a weakness for music, and even, on occasion, liked to intimidate his opponents with his fierce dance moves. He flipped his fin in the rhythm of the beat, getting wrapped up in the music, almost forgetting his plight. He was tapping along until suddenly loud shouting and screaming drowned out the music. There were a few more notes, then a crashing and banging sound. The Black Knight felt a great big fury overcome him, all he wanted was to get up and run over there and give the idiot who stopped the lovely music a piece of his mind. He felt a tingling sensation in his legs and arms, and came over all funny. The world around him started spinning and he felt like he was falling into a black hole. When he came around again, he could still hear the commotion in the distance, and he noticed something else- his fins had turned into arms and legs again! He wasted no time to ponder this strange occurrence, but jumped up and ran towards the scene of the crime. What he saw was a bearded fat man hitting the musicians with a big stick, all the while shouting about how he hated music and if they didn't stop at once he'd throw them all from the highest tower of Swamp Castle.

"Who dares to disturb the music?" the Black Knight hollered in his loudest voice.

The bearded man looked up at him, eyes ablaze with fury and not in the least impressed with his rather fierce opponent.

"What's the matter with all of you??!! Is there no end to this constant singing? Has everybody around me lost their mind??!!1

The Black Knight didn't take kindly to this kind of impudence.

"You will apologise at once to these nice musicians!!"

The bearded man growled and kept his mouth firmly shut.

The Black Knight lifted up his sword and lifted it to the bearded man's throat. The man didn't budge for a moment, but a careful, slow look into the Black Knight's steely eyes convinced him otherwise.

"Sorry..." he mumbled.

"Louder! Like you mean it!!" the Black Knight insisted.

"I'm SORRY!" the bearded man shouted, increasingly desperate.

There was agitation amongst the musicians, and eventually, the tallest of them, the singer, piped up.

"Sorry isn't quite good enough unfortunately,– our drummer's hand is broken, and without a drum, our music just doesn't work!"

The bearded man growled "Well he brought it on himself, if he'd just stopped banging it..."

The Black Knight frowned, thought for a bit, and then broke into a broad smile.

"I know a solution to your troubles, brave musicians. Why not let this sorry creature make himself useful and play the drums until your drummer recovers? I'll personally make sure he doesn't run away or gets any silly ideas."

The musicians turned to each other to discuss the idea, and finally the singer stepped forward and announced that yes please, they would be very happy with this solution!

The bearded man had been standing there, quietly fuming, until he finally couldn't hold himself back any more.

"Hellooooo?!! Are you nuts? I'll do no such thing! I don't even know how to play the drum!!!"

The Black Knight leaned forward and looked the man directly into the eye.

"Well, you'll learn quickly... I'll just give you a poke with my sword whenever you have to hit the drum!"

The bearded man opened his mouth to say something, and quickly shut it again.

And so it was done... Together, they trekked through the land, singing and dancing. The drummer's hand healed well, and after a month the grumpy, bearded old man was allowed to return to Swamp Castle, but not without promising that he'd never harm a musician again in his life unless he wanted to incur the wrath of the Black Knight.

As for the Black Knight himself, he found he enjoyed himself so much that he decided to stay with the musicians, singing, dancing and watching out for them in case anybody else would dare to threaten their lovely music.


End file.
